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Promoting young stock and cow health and welfare by natural feeding systems (ProYoungStock)
Project
Project code: 2817OE010
Contract period: 01.06.2018
- 31.03.2021
Budget: 46,643 Euro
Purpose of research: Applied research
Keywords: animal nutrition, husbandry techniques, cattle, production, limnic organisms, animal health, animal welfare
The objectives of the project are to collect, assess and develop natural feeding strategies that help to increase dairy livestock welfare including health in different agro-ecological and regulatory European contexts. This will be achieved by improving the rearing of calves pre-weaning and designing forage based feeding strategies for heifers and adult cows, both fostering the animal’s immune status and reducing the use of antibiotics and anthelmintics without negative impacts on animal performance and farm economy. The German contribution to the project comprises investigation of the hypotheses that 1) replacement calves benefit from increased milk amounts in terms of welfare and performance; 2) extensive roughage feeding systems for young stock and cows have a positive impact on health. Moreover, status quo of and legal conditions for dam rearing systems in the eight participating countries are compared. Innovative young stock rearing systems implemented by pioneer farmers that allow calf-cow contact are identified and described. Furthermore, the legal framework is described. Rearing calves on 5 farms (plus 5 farms in Austria) are fed either restricted (6 l /day) or increased amounts of milk (10 l/day) and effects on health, behaviour and performance investigated. Long-term effects of different feeding conditions (non-silage versus silage) during rearing and production on health is studied, mainly based on herd health and performance data. Farmer workshops will be organised as well leaflets, guidelines, practice abstracts, articles, and websites produced. New insights will be shared with the scientific community through peer reviewed papers.
Section overview
Subjects
- Animal Husbandry
- Animal health
- Animal nutrition
- Organic Farming
Framework programme
Federal Organic Farming Scheme and other forms of sustainable agriculture (BÖLN)
